I'm just finishing it up. It's one of the more difficult things I've ever read. Maybe difficult isn't the right word. I mean more like not easy to digest.
Has anyone else read it? What did you think?
I'm very interested in the history laid out there. It's not a period I'm terribly familiar with. The problem being, Stephenson has made no bones that he's mixed real history with things he's made up. I know the broad stuff, like the various revolutions, Newton at the Mint, etc., but much of it, I've got no way of determining the real from the fake.
Was there a Juncto? Did currency really work that way? And a hundred other questions.
Also, I'm woefully ignorant of artistic classifications. What does it mean for something to be "Baroque"? I mean, I'm pretty sure in terms of architechture and statuary, it has something to do with being heavily ornamented, but other than that...
Posted by LisB1121 (Member # 1703) on :
I read that this winter, and adored it. The best series I've read in years. You might be interested in:
Part of a Wiki that Stephenson himself is involved in that may answer some of your questions. I'm sure you're aware of the problems with the wiki system, and this one was pretty thoroughly vandalized a while back. Also, be warned that there may be scattered spoilers for other books he's written that are loosely related to the Baroque Cycle.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I got about 2/3 of the way through the first book, and it was moving so slowly, that I moved on.
I loved Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon, but this one didn't do a thing for me.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I read the first book. I enjoyed it enough that I will read the other two, but not so much that I am in a huge hurry.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
My father just asked me to read Quicksilver a couple of days ago. It's been on my list ever since Pod recommended it (I think it was Pod) some time ago. I'm going to be getting it next time I go to the library. So, nothing to contribute yet, but I'll probably be able to help out here and there once I've finished.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
I've only read Quicksilver so far. I really enjoyed it, though it did take me a while to get through it. I just bought The Confusion a few months back and am planning on getting to it some time this decade.
I'm hoping that more stuff is revealed about Enoch Root as the series goes on.
I've heard Stephenson is planning another book(or series of books) that take place in the future that will continue the adventures of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe families, with appearences by Enoch Root of course, and will have something to do with, in part at least, the gold punch cards Randy Waterhouse finds in Cryptonomicon.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Loved Cryptonomicon. Have been meaning to read the Baroque Cycle ever since. Have had too much on my plate (slogging my way through the very unsympathetic Mists of Avalon at the moment), but am definitely anxious to give these ones a read.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I just finished The System of the World.
Stephenson doesn't write like a storyteller, or so it seems to me. There's this air of weirdness to his books (not so much of content as of story choices) that pushes me out of my normal reading mode but utltimately doesn't put me off. For those who've read it, the wilderness survival turned laywer guy in Cryptonomicon was like this for me, as was most of the final events. They just don't seem to be choices that sit comfortably with my story reading instincts.
The Baroque Cycle is more full of this oddity than any of the other books of his I've read. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to others, but it's not a series I'm going to read again soon.
I'll say this though, System had some laugh out loud moments that really suprised me. It's a really funny book, in a making obscure jokes that it takes a moment for people bent the right way to get sort of way.
I really liked the setting and the shuttling back between intellectual discussion and absurd adventures. The early stuff with the Royal Society was terribly interesting, as was the Newton/Leibnitz stuff (trust me, it's gets a lot better than the tedious "who invented Calculus" bits - acutally, the tediousness and such of this becomes a very moderately important part of the story).